Tour de Osterreich

Yes, I am still alive! Last Wednesday, so Dec 1st I believe, Kati and I set out for the first stop on our week long trip, Innsbruck. Innsbruck is the capital of the western "providence" (im not really sure if that's the proper political word for the region). It's tucked away in the Alps and therefore known for its lovely mountains and winter sports. We made the four hour trip from Graz to Innsbruck in 7 hours or something because we had some car trouble as soon as we entered Germany. We made it however, and had a mechanic look at the car and turns out a little martin (some sort of weasel thing) had been knawing away at the wires. Easy enough to bandage up for the rest of our trip.

In Innsbruck, we stayed with Kati's boyfriend Simon and his family. We did a few touristy, and a few non-touristy, stops in the city. Seriously, I dont think I've ever shopped so much in my life. Unfortunately, there was a lot of fog that day and I couldnt see the mountains. But, lucky for me the sky was clear when we left on Friday and I could see them as we drove away.

Advent Market in Innsbruck

This is a house that was turned into an advent calender

Then came Salzburg. Well first came a designer outlet mall....where we bought nothing but a hairdryer : ) Couldn't afford much else. So we were lucky enough to find some space in a hostel and spent the next two days in Salzburg. You know, "the hills are alive." Yup, this is the land of the von Trapp family. I didn't make Kati suffer through any Sound of Music tours but I did read a bit about the story behind the musical. I didnt quite realize that the musically inclined family really did exist and even escape to the US before Hitler claimed Austria for the Nazi's.

Back to Salzburg though, whew was this a busy little tourist town. Between it being the site for Sound of Music and Mozart's hometown the crowds were thick as we walked through the streets.  We started the morning with the Festung Hohensalzburg, a castle that has been around since.....um...ok we did an audio-visual tour but those things really arent my thing so the details are sketchy. Its been around since at least 1000 AD. Really a gorgeous building, just a real challenge to get to and pretty filled up with tourists.

Then we wandered around and saw some other sights by literally following the crowds of old people being led around town by their tour guides. We stumbled upon Fraulein Maria's convent this way as well as Petersfriedhof (i just googled it and found out that the von Trapps hid here, why travel when you can google) and even the Christian Catacombs. I liked the catacombs--cheap, fascinating, and left the way they pretty much always were.

That little hole up above in the side of the mountain is the catacomb.

After this we wandered around and found Mozart's birthhome and residence. Not really all that exciting. I took pictures of the houses but we didn't go in and do the tours. What can they really say? This is the chair where Mozart might have sat (actually its a near-identical replica recreated for this money guzzling museum) and contemplated such and such masterpiece. So, we stayed outside. To take a break from the tourist-filled streets we went to a restaurant recommended in my tour guide, AfroCafe. That was lovely. I have no idea what my meal was called, it had rice, peppers, snap peas, and something white and wiggly. Sprouts, maybe? Dunno. yummy, quirky little restaurant.

We finished our last night in Salzburg with a little trip to the Mirabell gardens and had a little rummy punch.

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